51 quotes found
“Satan fell by the force of gravity.”
“I still think sincere pessimism the unpardonable sin.”
“Art, like morality, consists of drawing the line somewhere.”
“The Christian optimism is based on the fact that we do not fit in to the world.”
“Man is more himself, more manlike, when joy is the fundamental thing and grief superficial.”
“The main point of Christianity was this: that Nature is not our mother: Nature is our sister.”
“Love is not blind that is the last thing that it is. Love is bound and the more it is bound the less it is blind. ”
“Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, "Do it again"; and the grown-up person does...”
“He must not merely cling to life, for then he will be a coward, and will not escape. He must not merely wait for death, for then he will be a suicide, and will not escape. He must seek his life in ...”
“...even nursery tales only echo an almost pre-natal leap of interest and amazement. These tales say that apples were golden only to refresh the forgotten moment when we found that they were green. ...”
“The man who kills a man kills a man.The man who kills himself kills all men.As far as he is concerned, he wipes out the world.”
“A man who says that no patriot should attack the [war] until it is over is not worth answering intelligently; he is saying that no good son should warn his mother off a cliff until she has fallen o...”
“They said that I should lose my ideals and begin to believe in the methods of practical politicians. Now, I have not lost my ideals in the least; my faith in fundamentals is exactly what it always ...”
“Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely ...”
“According to most philosophers, God in making the world enslaved it. According to Christianity, in making it, He set it free. God had written, not so much a poem, but rather a play; a play he had p...”
“Let us suppose we are confronted with a desperate thing say Pimlico. If we think what is really best for Pimlico we shall find the thread of thought leads to the throne of the mystic and the arbit...”
“, I found the whole modern world talking scientific fatalism; saying that everything is as it must alwayshave been, being unfolded without fault from the beginning. The leaf on the tree is green be...”
“Poets do not go mad; but chess-players do. Mathematicians go mad, and cashiers; but creative artists very seldom. I am not, as will be seen, in any sense attacking logic: I only say that this dange...”
“What again could this astonishing thing be like which people were so anxious to contradict, that in doing so they did not mind contradicting themselves?”
“To the Buddhist or the eastern fatalist, existence is a science or a plan, which must end up in a certain way. But to a Christian, existence is a STORY, which may end up in any way. In a thrilling ...”
“If you leave off looking at books about beasts and men, if you begin to look at beasts and men then (if you have any humour or imagination, any sense of the frantic or the farcical) you will observ...”
“Those countries in Europe which are still influenced by priests, are exactly the countries where there is still singing and dancing and coloured dresses and art in the open-air. Catholic doctrine a...”
“I felt in my bones; first, that this world does not explain itself. It may be a miracle with a supernatural explanation; it may be a conjuring trick, with a natural explanation. But the explanation...”
“Man is more himself, man is more manlike, when joy is the fundamental thing in him, and grief the superficial. Melancholy should be an innocent interlude, a tender and fugitive frame of mind; prais...”
